NEW DELHI: The High Court on Thursday pulled up the Delhi Police, warning it of ordering a CBI probe into the Special Cell cops allegedly detaining and torturing a number of activists, including students, illegally last month.
A bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Ravinder Dudeja made the observation while seeking police response on what action had been taken in relation to the “serious allegations” of torture, which the bench said “could not be a means of interrogation”.
“When someone makes an allegation against someone, you will just pick her up? We are not going to allow this. If you had some material to suspect them, you would have a procedure prescribed in law. If you did not, we will ask the commissioner to order an inquiry.
We are not concerned with how grave an allegation is, and we are concerned with procedure. The Constitution says procedure prescribed by law,” the court said.
The bench added, “Tell us that action has been taken, or else we will... We are not going to express any opinion, but we will say that the allegations are very serious and this has to be referred to the CBI.”
The bench made the remarks after finding a status report filed by police “unsatisfactory” and directed that the entire case file be placed before it on May 19. In its report, the Delhi Police denied all allegations.
“You may be investigating a terrorist angle, but if you pick up someone, you have to follow the procedure,” it said.
The court was hearing a batch of petitions concerning the alleged illegal detention of several activists by the police after they were “picked up” from Dayal Singh College and Vijay Nagar in March. One of the writ petitions was filed by the younger sister of Lakshita Rajoura, who alleged that she and other students were abducted and taken to an unmarked building in New Friends Colony.
Police had earlier claimed that allegations of custodial torture and illegal detention “were concocted and motivated to derail an investigation into their Maoist-linked activities”.